At Taki’s Magazine, Dalrymple writes of Chilean president-elect Michelle Bachelet, whose recent statements evince an all-too-common arrogance:
Members of modern democratic countries’ political class believe that on winning an election by a process laid down by a constitution, the mandate of heaven has been conferred upon them. That is certainly the case with such preening popinjays as Anthony Blair and Barack Obama. Their motto is not vox populi, vox dei (the voice of the people is the voice of the gods), but that the votes of the people (for them, not for their opponents) are the voice of the gods.